Civil rights scholar Sherrilyn Ifill to speak at KU
LAWRENCE — Civil rights advocate Sherrilyn Ifill will present the Emily Taylor and Marilyn Stokstad Women’s Leadership Lecture on April 19 at the University of Kansas.
Ifill’s lecture will serve as the keynote address for Brown v. Board at 70: Looking Back and Striving Forward, an April 18-19 conference sponsored by KU’s School of Education & Human Sciences and the Brown v. Board of Education National Historical Park in Topeka to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the landmark legal decision.
Brown v. Board of Education was a landmark 1954 Supreme Court case that struck down racial segregation in public schools, overturning the "separate but equal" doctrine and laying the legal groundwork for the Civil Rights Movement.
Registration for the event at KU’s Burge Union is full, but walk-up attendees may be allowed to fill no-show spots beginning at 9:15 a.m. April 19. Ifill’s address also will be livestreamed beginning at 12:30 p.m. Those wishing to access the livestream should register online.
Ifill has spent her career teaching about and advocating for various civil rights causes, including voting rights, economic justice and education. From 2013 to 2022, she served as president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. She was named this year as the inaugural Vernon L. Jordan Chair in Civil Rights at Howard Law School, where she also serves as director of the 14th Amendment Center for Law and Democracy.
The Emily Taylor and Marilyn Stokstad lecture was established in 1999 to honor the legacy of two women who played a key role in the advancement of women at KU. Taylor served as KU’s dean of women from 1956 to 1974. During that time, she established the Women’s Resource Center and Career Planning Center at KU and founded the first university-based Commission on the Status of Women in the United States. Stokstad was a longtime professor of the history of art. She was a groundbreaking female scholar at KU and supported many feminist activities and causes during her tenure.